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Case Studies

Chester Street

London

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The brief for this London garden was for it to look good throughout the year both from the ground floor and the first floor.

The line of the canal determines the geometry of the whole garden and Box hedges in raised brick beds follow its line rather than the irregular shape of the walls.

The walls are lined with trellis and large topiary in Versailles cases are arranged symmetrically. Lead pots with Arum Lilies line the canal and George Carter designed the frost work lead obelisk water feature.

Castle Hill

Devon

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The house and gardens look over a Grade I 18th century park and there is a fine woodland garden behind the house. In 1999 I was asked to design a summer garden to create colour and interest.

Dunbeath Castle

Caithness

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This walled garden was first laid out in 1860. In 1998 I was asked to remodel the whole garden. It was deeply conventional with its mixture of veg, fruit, flowers and shrubs.

But it lacked structure within it, so garden rooms were installed with permanent structures, each providing a different service and personality.

The Long Borders dissect the garden into four sections, each section subdivided by ironwork arches providing working and decorative gardens.

Chelsea Flower Show

London

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My brief here was to create a classical garden and most importantly one that people could relate to.

At the front is a York stone terrace on which stand eight classical round brick columns topped with ironwork.

The garden is divided into a formal area with its long borders at the base of brick walls. The planting was a mixture of reds, pinks, purples, blues and creams. There is a Box edged stone seat and a central feature with Arum Lilies, which are also echoed in the wrought iron gate, leading to an informal woodland area.

There are several pictures of other Chelsea gardens I have designed.

Wilton House

Wiltshire

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This cloister garden was a central courtyard of a large Tudor house. Because of civil wars and a serious fire it was rebuilt in 1653 and an account of a knot garden in 1623 led me to design this garden in 1997. It was important not to distract from the wealth of pictures and sculptures in the house but at the same time it had to look good from the upper cloisters.

The design of each quadrant was taken from the patterns in the facing sides of the central well-head, which is 9th century Venetian. Only three varieties of plants were used, namely Box, Cotton Lavender and standard Bay trees.

RHS Garden Hyde Hall

Essex

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The Hyde Hall garden in Essex became the responsibility of the RHS in 1993 and has undergone huge restoration and new gardens.

The Witan Global Growth garden was opened in 2016. I designed it with education and science in my mind following an idea of making a garden that grew edible plants from all over the world. We concentrated on Europe, North America, South America and Asia as being the most interesting and prolific of the continents.

It is a large round area with a 50m diameter. In the centre is the Hartley Botanica greenhouse and around it are raised beds of different heights and shapes divided into 4, denoting the specific region. Behind the Osmanthus hedge, are 4 large grassy mounds with beds of the shrubs and trees of the relative continent. Everything in this garden is edible, be it flowers, leaves, berries, fruits or roots and tubers .

It is designed for everyone to enjoy but also to learn about so many different plants that we grow as ornamentals but which are eaten in other parts of the world.
So this attracts many school groups .